Do Short Sellers Affect Corporate Innovation? Evidence from a Policy Experiment
利用一项随机去除卖空约束的政策实验，发现卖空者能提升企业的创新质量、价值和效率，其机制是通过专利诉讼风险来约束管理层。
Abstract We examine the effect of short sellers on corporate innovation. To establish causality, we use a policy experiment that exogenously removes the short-selling constraint for a randomly selected subsample of Russell 3000 firms. We find that innovation quality, value, and efficiency of treatment firms improve significantly more than those of control firms surrounding the policy shock. The exposure to patenting-related litigation initiated by short sellers is a plausible underlying mechanism through which short sellers discipline firm managers and enhance innovation. Our paper provides new insights into an unintended real effect of short sellers, specifically their improvement of technological innovation.